Tropical storm Isaac ushered in the 2012 hurricane season. If you’re planning travel this fall — especially to or near the southeastern United States or the Caribbean — you need to add the possibility of hurricanes to your travel-planning mix.

Airlines: If you have an air ticket to or from an area of potential impact, airlines generally allow you to reschedule your trip with no penalty, no fees and no change in fare. But they offer very little flexibility: You can change flights originally booked for specific routes and dates. However, your replacement trip must generally start within a week or so of your original dates.

If you’d rather wait beyond the airline’s narrow deadlines, you’ll face some combination of exchange fees and fare increases. If you wait until departure time and your airline actually cancels your flight, you can get a full refund on even a nonrefundable ticket. But you have less flexibility if you decide several days in advance that you’d rather abort the trip.

Hotels/resorts: Each hotel and resort sets its own policies. But on a nonrefundable advance booking prepayment, many offer only a credit toward a future stay, not a full cash refund.

Cruise lines: Typically one-sided cruise contracts allow companies a lot of leeway in how they respond to hurricanes. They seldom cancel outright; instead, they skip scheduled ports, substitute ports, depart early or late, and otherwise adapt. When a cruise line substitutes a major change in itinerary, some volunteer to let you cancel and receive a voucher toward a future cruise or a shipboard credit, but no law obliges them to do so. Moreover, cruise lines are pretty hard-nosed about changes: When a scheduled cruise alters the itinerary significantly, you may be faced with a “take it, or leave it” choice with no refund or rebooking option.

Travel insurance: Most trip-cancellation insurance (TCI) is pretty narrow about “covered reasons,” and “hurricane” isn’t always one of them. Weather that makes your destination “uninhabitable” or forces your airline to shut down are almost always included as covered reasons, but not weather that just makes conditions at your destination unpleasant. And most don’t include altered cruise itineraries as covered reasons for cancellation. Moreover, you can’t cancel just because of a tropical storm that “might” develop into a hurricane.

Fortunately, you have some options:

Some policies kick in as soon as a hurricane warning is issued for your destination or cruising area, but others don’t pay until a hurricane hits. Protect yourself by searching for a policy that includes a warning as a covered reason.

An even better bet is a “cancel for any reason” TCI policy. Although these policies are more expensive, they’re your only option to cancel without waiting until it may be too late for another solution.